Derby drop 2 pts at Newark but come away with dignity in tact

I wanted to wait until Sunday morning to write this weeks report in order to think long and hard about what to write.

Post game there were a couple of incidents involving spectators and players from our opposition towards our own players that were totally unacceptable, I will not be making any direct reference to these during this report, they will be dealt with outside this forum. I would like to say though that Marie has voiced her opinions (rightly) to the Newark stand-in Captain (Holly Powell who was not involved in any way) during a calm and relaxed post game chat pitch side at which it was agreed that the behaviour was unacceptable.

The game.

A brief report

The first half was at times an end-to-end encounter but the Derby backs made defending and distribution look easy with Amanda in particular playing superbly.

Newark did threaten on only 3 occasions with one break away which found Lisa in great form forcing the on-rushing forward wide onto another defenders stick, a straight strike at a penalty corner which Lisa saved with ease and a good piece of cover defending from Marie as a Newark striker shot towards goal beating Lisa for once only to find Marie covering behind at full pace to sweep the ball away from goal.

In a scrappy encounter really we had to wait until the 35th minute to open our account. The penalty corner was one and following a couple of filed corners with the new routines Marie beat me to the call of “OLD SCHOOL ELVIS”

The injection came out, the player movement was exact, the ball movement was accurate and Rachael was on had to finish the move off to send us in at ½ time 1-0 up.


The 2nd half was a totally different game with Newark coming out with a totally different aggressive attitude. But on 43 mins it was again a quick passing move out of our defence that found Kath driving over ½ way, as she rode the 1st, then a 2nd then a 3rd tackle it was Taran who made a run inside the Newark D reminiscent of Ali’s against Australia, Kath spotted this and crashed the diagonal ball to her, a superb deft touch from Taran saw the ball crash against the backboard for a 2-0 lead. (9 in 9 for Taran)

For some reason we then began to get nervous and all we had done well in the opening 45 mins went wrong.

Newark got back into the game with a fluke of a goal as the forward crashed a brilliant and powerful reverse stick strike towards our goal only to be deflected from close range by the unfortunate Beth sending the ball looping over Lisa to bring Newark back to 1-2.

Their zealous crowd was now in full voce and the effect on some of the Newark players was to play a more physical game.

Another scrappy attack from Newark saw them have a shot on goal bounce around the D with several players having a shot at goal but eventually the ball bobbled over Lisas foot and an advanced Newark forward just slipped it in for 2-2.

And that’s how it finished.


Coaches Notes:

A game in which we did not win a point away from home against the 3rd place team, we definitely lost 2pts.

The umpiring was spot on all day and held together in difficult circumstances especially on the bench side of the pitch in dealing with a vociferous supporters section. (Good job Nigel)

I want to give credit to the way the girls handled the post game antics and verbal volleys today. However I firmly believe that if the Newark Coach Paul Halfpenny had been pitchside today that none of these actions would have taken place.

We held our heads high during the game, post game and as a team in the pub after.

I was also delighted that the Wig of Wonderment winner was shared between Laura and Helena, absolutely the correct decision.

As for the pants of shame……………… tut tut tut Kelly……… Lessons learned.